Storm Outside

Growing up in California I have never experienced much weather.  I know how to duck and cover in a quake and I know a lot about water conservation, the result of the lack of weather. I really don't know what to do with weather. Sure I lived a couple years in New England, and a few years with the fog of San Francisco. One of my favorite things to do is watch the fog roll down the street instantly taking the warmth out of the air. I've watched lightening light up the sky over lake Victoria while sipping wine in the dark, sheltered by balcony. None of my limited experience with weather prepared me for a Spring Storm in Texas.

The initial worry started with a text from a volunteer, "Welcome to Texas, you're about to experience a spring storm. Sit back and enjoy the show." After that first text I started receiving others, they went from watch to warning to instructions to take cover. Inching along the freeway that was turning into a river. I walked into my apartment just as the sirens started to blare. It was so noisy outside I could barley hear them A friend called, a Texan Native. In a calm voice she told me exactly what to do. With brief hesitation, my blinds rattling, my heart gripped in fear and I moved into action.The next thing I really remember is laying curled up in a ball underneath my sofa cushions sweating in the warm wet air my back angled awkwardly against the cold hard prociln of my tub. I did what any experienced Humanitarian would do, I bawled my eyes out crying for my mommy. After a few minutes my tears turned to laughter as I realized how ridiculous I was being. Yes the thought of a tornado forming on top of my tiny little no wall apartment scares me. I've lived in some of the most challenging and personally dangerous places in the world and I am scared of this? I could hear my friends voice, you are going to be fine, just stay covered in your tub, you aren't going to die tonight.

I am so grateful for my friend who in the midst of a storm put her own safety on hold to calm me and walk me through the storm. I cannot help but think about the families I work with that are in crisis. Their lives spinning out of control just like the wind that had been turning against my building. They must feel the same way. Scared to death. They don't know what to do. My volunteers are the ones taking the time to step into the storm, a calm voice soothing them. The whisper into the phone saying, do this, do it now, you are going to be ok.

I Dreamed a Dream

Since moving to Dallas, I have lost my face to face processing. I have been writing. A lot. I wrote this shortly after seeing Les Miserables a few months ago. I thought I would share it today.

I recently saw Les Miserables for the first time. I sat in the theater weeping during Anne Hathaway's I dreamed a dream scene. Her character, a single mother, is fired unjustly from her job. Being a single mother with no means she does what she has to in order to provide for her daughter.

I could not help but see the mothers we walk with in her, onscreen I watched as Ann sold her hair, her teeth, her possessions; witnessing the raping of her innocence and body through prostitution. In my mind I saw the pleading eyes, the cries of the vulnerable, the scars on her arms, the bruises on the others thighs, seeing through their explanations, so desperately wanting to hide in the embarrassment and shame of the hell they are living.

The women I meet through work live in a perpetual state of crisis of a life on a downward spiral, living under a shroud of shame and embarrassment. One day they were young in spirit and vibrant, they dreamed a dream. Their lives twisted into a downward spiral of circumstances and regretful choices that leads to isolation and the devaluation of their lives.

These beautiful hearts of broken women share their deepest darkest secrets, they share their greatest failures, and they expect judgment and condemnation. Rarely am I able to meet these expectations, I willingly offer my hand to hold, walking with them into the embrace of a community that will love them just as they are offering the hope to dream again.

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.